What problems do flying cars solve? I know it looks cool but is there some huge thing that would get solved with this?
Air-travel doesn't have those same constraints. Travel could be more point-to-point. An accident by one or two aircraft doesn't need to inhibit the travel of all other crafts flying in the general vicinity. Air space, while regulated and crowded in some urban areas, is largely under-utilized and expansive. It's also not a space that is shared with foot traffic, so pedestrians could reclaim some of the space currently allocated to roads since the volume of vehicular traffic would likely drop.
That's not to say that personal air travel doesn't introduce an entire set of new problems and challenges - it absolutely does, but there are many problems that cars and roads cause which air-travel avoids by-design.
Think of air-travel in the context of this cartoon:
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24948/to-a-pedestri...
Its also worth mentioning that none of these proposed designs are vtol, so you'll need a real runway to land or take off.
Worse, how do you leave the massive underground parking lot? Drive to the street then somewhere you can safely lift off? Now you have to wait to taxi to the proper runway or lift off zone or whatever these things will ultimately be allowed to use. Double worse, now we're less invested in solutions that actually work and don't require massive parking spaces like public trans via light rail, e-bikes, traditional bikes, etc.
There's a reason why the personal plane never took off. I'm pretty bearish about the flying car concept, even if all the technical and regulatory issues are easily solved (hint: they wont be) there's still pricing and safety issues on top of the parking problem. Oh and 9/11 is fresh in everyone's minds. Can you imagine anyone approving these things flying near the skyscrapers we work in? I suspect that if that these things catch on, they'll be like the Concorde. A toy for rich people in a hurry but with so many strict regulations and limitations that it'll ultimately be infeasible in the long run.
If Page and Google have shown anything, they're poor futurists outside of the information realm. When it comes to hardware, they're batting very poorly. They let Valve and Oculus take the VR crown, they let Musk take space tourism and electric cars, they let Jobs take the first mass market smartphone, let Amazon take the e-book crown, etc.
Rooftops have been used for ages as landing pads for helicopters. I don't see why you couldn't do the same for these. And the article mentions adoption of the uber-model of non-ownership, so it's not like you'd need a parking lot of these sitting idly at the workplace for end-of-day. They'd come and go on-demand.
What I envision instead is an extension of the office park concept, but suddenly there's no traffic congestion. You could have massive suburban/exurban growth and still have incredibly short commutes -- employees fly to their offices and park on the grounds.
Folks who work downtown should probably live in the city/commuter suburbs and would be better served by other types of transit such as rail. I doubt this type of vehicle would even be allowed in a dense urban area. Flying cars in Manhattan sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
I think suburban people probably aren't as motivated and if this stuff can't handle skyscrapers then the concept is pretty much dead outside of recreational usage.
lol, an accident by one or two aircraft might not immediately inhibit the travel of nearby crafts, but it will certainly cause a legal storm that will eventually inhibit it!
For one, UAS take up more space than cars. Sure they can be smaller, but operators/systems need more space to safely fly. Two, we don't have systems in place to handle large amounts of traffic. Traffic on roads is much simpler. You have well defined routes, and you have well-defined regulations to safely handle adverse driving situations. UAS do not currently have systems that can automatically handle large amounts of traffic or adverse flying conditions. Plus the autonomous systems are currently not quite up to a human pilot's ability to fly. There may be some very advanced autonomous flight systems, but there isn't anything that could handle the amount of traffic comparable to current street traffic.
I think this is definitely an exciting time for autonomous flight. But I also think we are just really starting to get around to solving the problems caused by UAS. I don't know if it's fair to compare large amounts of UAS traffic to street traffic. I think the state of UAS traffic management is closer to the state of street traffic 100 or so years ago. UAS safety systems and airspace regulations definitely aren't sophisticated.
Maintenance, upkeep, costs, and regulations are obvious reasons why some would be deterred from owning and using a private plane.
But most everyone of the pilots said, if you want to go to the beach, in general, the best way to get there is a 6 to 8-hour drive in a minivan. The faster you go in the plane, the faster you burn fuel, and the more likely you'll have to land to refuel. Even if you don't refuel, loading, landing, unpacking, and rental cars are all unpleasant time sucks at a small airport in a small plane which saves you maybe 2 or 3 hours on your commute.
These folks are also not lacking for disposable income.
For $400,000 I could get a decent shape used Beechcraft Bonanza and a 2 year old Corvette or BMW M-class sedan. Both of which would out-perform the Flying Car in either respect. Easily.
1) Efficiency. A flying car can theoretically take a straight line to its destination instead of having to follow a complex road layout. It might be less efficient to fly per minute, but if you're flying less minutes, it could be a net gain.
2) Reduce congestion. How much fuel in a car is burnt in traffic? With flying cars, congestion will largely be a thing of the past, you have effectively unlimited road just by changing altitude.
3) Reduce urban sprawl. You can get rid of a lot of the roads that plaster the countryside. There will still need to be some obviously. But less.
4) Reduce national infrastructure costs. As above, you get rid of the roads, you don't need to maintain them anymore.
5) Convenience. You don't need a driveway or garage on your house when you can land on the roof ;)
All in all there are quite a few decent reasons for it. Just depends on whether you can beat that efficiency level.
It would be interesting to see if anyone has done calculations factoring in the cost savings from reducing sprawl and the miles of road that are maintained each year.
Ironic choice of words. The winding road system adds distance to your commute, but a windy airspace adds air-miles to your commute.
That is, a flying car doesn't travel through the same amount of air when going 1 ground mile in different directions.
Personally I don't think flying cars will take off (ha, done it again...) for quite some time, if only for risk reasons. Think about just how many car accidents there are every day, now imagine every accident ending with a 100m death plunge from the sky. I just can't see it going mainstream for a long time.
I expect it will always be more efficient to roll an object on wheels than to keep an object lifted under power and moving forward at the same time. Rolling friction is not very high. This and safety are major reasons we don't have flying cars today. Prop planes are in the sub 20 mpg range and jets are in the gallons per mile.
>2) Reduce congestion
I think that autonomous cars (on the ground) will solve this a lot faster than flying cars.
> 3) Reduce urban sprawl.
This is just incorrect. The roads are not what causes urban sprawl and the roads are not the only negative impact. Urban sprawl happened for two reasons: "white flight" and easy transportation. This does nothing for one and makes the other easier.
> 4) Reduce national infrastructure costs.
This would be a very long term benefit after ubiquity of flying cars:cars as cars:trains now. I don't think it will ever get there because of point 1). Personal flight consumes more energy than personal rolling.
>5) convenience.
True. Although houses would have to have heli landing pads installed making it more of a rich toy item. Not to mention noise. Also, autonomous rolling vehicles will solve this too. Is going to your roof more convenient than going to your driveway?
When I drive my car to work, I have to take a big dogleg out to the motorway, sit in traffic for 5 minutes to join, then drive down the motorway which is winding between the towns but mostly going the right direction, then take another big dogleg off + traffic, and finally I'm at my destination. I wouldn't be surprised if I'd driven the equivalent of 2-3 times the straight line distance.
Normal efficiency calcs focus on the gallons part, a flying car would reduce the miles.
The metro also usually goes in straight lines.
Personally speaking I love dense living and walking everywhere, but it's not for everyone.
Theoretically. That fact that standard commercial flights don't do that should be a red flag. Commercial flights follow pre-designated airways.
Smaller aircraft in unregulated airspace aren't that constrained. But that's because there's too few of them.